


For You Only

by RZZMG



Series: Rare Pairs [27]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Consensual Sex, Drama & Romance, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Interhouse Fest 2017, M/M, Mystery, Obsession, Prisoner of War, Secret Marriage, Spy C. Warrington, Spy Marcus Flint, Spy Severus Snape, Trust Issues, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-02-14 02:38:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12998004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZZMG/pseuds/RZZMG
Summary: Their one night together still haunted Katie… Marcus Flint had saved her life long ago, and she’d given her heart to the enemy in return. Now, captured by Voldemort’s dark forces during the war and sold into slavery to Marcus, she discovers the real reason for his abandonment so many years before…





	1. Chasing shadows

**Author's Note:**

> This was my 2017 Interhouse Fest (interhouse-fest . livejournal . com) entry. The fest is over and reveals are out, so now I can post this for you here. This fanfic is finished. It is multi-chaptered, so I'll put up a chapter a week until it's finished.
> 
> FEST PROMPT: #153 - _“He told her he loved her, she thought it was a joke. It had to be. Right?” Couple: Katie/Marcus_  
>  TIMELINE: War - A/U (2004)  
> EXTRA NOTES: War has dragged on longer than canon, with no immediate resolution in sight. Some Order Members have been taken prisoner in the interim. Also, there is no explicit, on-screen rape in this story -- only an implication that a character was raped in the past. However, to avoid triggers, I have marked this story with the appropriate Additional Tags (not Archive Warnings, however, as there is no active rape/non-con in this tale, only a reference to it having happened in the past). This is story set in a dark war era, when the Order is losing, but it's got a happy ending and hope for the future win by the Order.
> 
> Once more, a HUGE thank you to my betas, 'ladysashi' and 'wingedheart'! I appreciate all the advice, the corrections, and most importantly, the kindness and love you freely offer to help beta my stories. Love you ladies, and this one is dedicated to you both!
> 
> Thank you to the mods of Interhouse-Fest for once more putting on a fest for us this year! Always love this event and can’t wait to read and review the submissions!

 

* * *

 

His fingers were a cold vice around Katie's wrist, his touch a million icy suns, and it was with great trepidation and some resistance that she was forcibly led on wards towards an uncertain fate.

"Hurry," Marcus Flint urged her, yanking hard on her arm, nearly pulling it from its socket as he dragged her behind him down a dizzying number of corridors that all looked the same.

In truth, she wasn't sure how her new 'master' knew which way to go in this twisted labyrinth of a house. She'd tried counting the number of turns they'd taken, how many sets of stairs they'd climbed, but it seemed the old Flint Manor was as deviant and freakish as its owners.

Deeper they went into the house, away from the fancy ballroom and its blood-curdling screams, far from the taunting laughter that seemed to haunt Katie's every step.

Marcus had really done it, hadn't he? He'd invested fully in the lie of blood superiority. Gone was the man she'd loved four years ago; in his place stood one of Voldemort's Inner Circle, a loyalist to the cause of wizarding superiority. The iron slave collar branded with his initials and bound around her neck proved it.

In her head, she'd always known that her ex-lover wouldn't betray his father's traditions, but in her heart, she'd held out a foolish hope that perhaps he'd find his way back to her, that he'd be his own man and shun the wrongness of his upbringing.

Now she knew better.

"You're hurting me," she snarled, yanking on his hold.

 _Coward. Liar. Flunky minion,_  she silently accused the back of his head.

The first thing she'd do once they'd stopped would be to figure out a way to get the collar off, and then like she had four years ago, she'd steal his wand and turn it on him. She'd truss up Marcus Flint like a goose at Christmas and hang him by his toes from the rafters. Then, she'd find her way back to that bizarre ballroom to free her friends from that disgusting group of demented rapists who were reveling in the capture of some of her fellow Order members. She'd show the lot of them how raising hell was  _really_  done, a la Gryffindor style…

They came at last to an impressive, metal door and it magically opened for Marcus, and then summarily shut behind them once they'd passed through its gilded arch with a resounding boom.

Katie looked up and around to find they were in an ancient chapel of some sort—early-Christian, if the rough iconic imagery and the crude construction of this subset of building were to be believed. Her mother might have been able to say for certain the date, as Paleochristian art and architecture were her areas of expertise at the University of Edinburgh, where she taught.

When she  _had_  taught, that was, before Katie's biological father had taken her mother and escaped from England's shores when the war had broken out. They'd gone to the continent to hide.

Divorced her parents might have been, but her wizarding father, Caius Warrington—whom Katie had hardly known, as he'd left them when she'd been two to return to the wizarding world—had done right by his Muggle ex-wife this time around, at least. Apparently, he'd never stopped loving Chandra Monique Bell, despite the years, her non-magical status, and the colour of her skin.

Bully for him! That didn't make up for his complete abandonment for years, as far as Katie was concerned. The man would have to work harder than a hefty Apparition overseas to earn her forgiveness. It's one of the reasons why she'd turned him down when he'd asked her to come with.

To be fair, she'd also stayed to fight, to help her friends, to right the injustice of Voldemort's world, just like Hermione had chosen to do.

And now here she was a captive of Marcus Flint, her childhood tormentor and former lover.

 _It was one night,_  she reminded herself, shutting out the memory of the hours spent in continuous ecstasy in Marcus' bed as she'd succumbed to his seduction.  _Dusk to dawn. Hardly counts._

She should have known after everything that had gone down that this was where he'd end up. When he hadn't taken her hand and joined her on the run, despite her pleading, when he'd stayed to serve his Dark Master, well, that had been the big clue that she'd misplaced her affections. Obviously, what they'd done together hadn't been enough to sway his dark heart then; he'd already decided who he'd wanted to be.

Only once they were near the front of the chapel did her new 'overlord' release her from his bruising hold. Katie quickly took two steps back from him, alert and on the defensive. She looked for his wand, but saw it was already in his hand, in a rather tight grip.

"Vicious brute," she accused him, massaging her sore wrist and quickly looking around for some tool of some sort that might help her pry the collar off. There had to be something nearby she could use, right?

Flint snorted, turning to pin her with an intense, censuring stare.

"Ungrateful witch," he fired back.

She gaped at him. "You expect me to be grateful? For what?" She grabbed the band of iron that encircled her throat. "The part where you snapped this around my neck and used magic to drag me out of line to your side to claim me as your intended broodmare in front of a room full of psychotic murderers and rapists? Gee, thanks ever so for 'claiming' me first, Marc."

Impossible as it seemed, Marcus' dark green eyes hardened. He took a step towards her and her heart took off like a frightened little bird in her chest.

She pointed at him with her uninjured hand and stepped back until her shoulders met the nearby wall. "Don't you dare!" she screeched at him, hoping to keep him at bay, all-too-aware that they were alone and that her magic had been shackled by the ugly iron 'accessory' he'd secured around her neck. "Don't you dare touch me again, Marcus Andronicus Flint!"

There is power in using someone's full name and she watched as her ex-lover flinched as she hurled his like a curse. He spat something under his breath, but kept his distance.

His brows lowered as he glowered at her, though.

Katie lifted her chin and sneered right back, refusing to be cowered.

The doors at the back of the chapel opened, and Flint's wand was up and pointed at them faster than Katie could track. He relaxed a moment later as the shadows coalesced into familiar shapes.

"Trouble with your slave, Flint?"

Cassius Warrington strolled in as if he owned the room. Behind him, leashed as well as collared, came a vanquished Oliver Wood.

"The Nott pipsqueak was right about what they do to them," Katie's snobbish first cousin stated, tugging gently on Oliver's chain to pull him forward to his side. To her surprise, her former Captain said nothing. He didn't even look up. He looked well and truly defeated, in fact. The light had gone out of his eyes as he dully stared at the floor and awaited the next abuse. "That arse-fuck MacNair liked his 'pet' a little too much, it seems. Motherfucking sadist."

She knew Oliver had been captured three months ago, but how could he have been broken in such a short time?

"Ollie?" she called to him in concern and took a step in his direction. "Ollie, what‒?"

Flint cut her off, stepping effectively in her path and forcing her to stop or they'd collide. Glaring up at him, she coldly conveyed in exacting detail the evisceration she had in store for him if he didn't move out of her way pronto.

Across the room, her cousin burst out into laughter that rang around the chapel's domed ceiling. "Your crude Muggle roots are showing, cousin."

Over Marcus' shoulder, she told Cassius exactly where he could shove his disgusting pure-blood sensibilities. "I'm ashamed to be related to you," she told him. "This‒" She pointed to the collars and then to what everyone knew was happening out the chapel doors, on the other side of the vast mansion. "‒is truly evil." She shook her head and looked with great disappointment on her relation. "How could you want to be a part of this, Cassius? We might never have gotten on, but how could you want to be like Yaxley and the Lestranges and that…that disgusting creature you serve on your knees, like a dog begging for table scraps?" She looked up at Marcus, looked him straight in the eye when she asked him, "How could you?"

Her captor didn't reply, but he didn't drop his gaze in shame, either. Apparently, he was okay with becoming what he had.

No one spoke or moved for a long while, so eventually Katie took that as her cue that she would not be hindered in going to Oliver again. And she'd been right. Neither man interfered as she went to her friend and gently attempted to get him to look at her by talking softly to him.

When the tears came, silent as they fell, Katie knew Oliver was still in there, that whatever MacNair had done to him hadn't been enough to completely shatter his soul, thank Godric.

"Gryffindor to the end," she whispered to him their House's proud mantra, trying to give him courage in the face of such wretched anguish. He gave a sad-sobbing laugh and pulled her into his embrace, hugging her as if the world was ending.

As she glanced over at Marcus from the safety of Oliver's arms, noting how an angry storm coiled and twisted in his eyes as he watched her touch another man, she held to her friend and secretly despaired of sharing Oliver's fate.


	2. But never knowing

**~.~.~**

"What are we waiting for?" Katie finally dared to talk to Marcus.

He'd spent the last hour watching her, silently, and occasionally trading looks with Cassius that spoke of his impatience to be away.

"Eager to be alone with your new 'master', cousin?" Cassius teased, snickering. He gave Marcus the once over and smirked. "He is quite the specimen, I admit. Have you tried him out before?"

Marcus said nothing, but he did slowly climb to his feet from the crouch he'd maintained against the wall. The move had 'menace' written all over it, particularly given his rather impressive size. He was six feet, three-inches of tall and built like a bear, all burly muscles now that he'd reached full maturity, and yet surprisingly, he moved gracefully. He positively dwarfed Cassius.

What had he been doing over the last four years since she'd last seen him to end up looking like that? Katie wondered.

Her slimmer, less impressive cousin blanched and kept his mouth closed, much to her amusement.

"Maybe you ought to spend less time antagonizing people, Cas," she advised, "and a little more time finding your long, lost conscience."

Cassius glared at her, but was careful not to insult her again, she noticed.

"So, are you going to answer my question?" she asked, turning back to Marcus. "What are we waiting for? Why are we here?"

"That's three questions."

It took her a moment to realise her new 'master' had made a joke.

Letting go of Oliver's hand, she made her way over to Marcus and got right up in his grill. "I'm serious, Flint." Hands on her hips, she frowned up at him, determined not to let his hulking size inspire fear or awe in her. "I thought Death Eaters enjoyed reveling in the rape, humiliation, torture, and murder of their slaves, so why aren't we with the others?"

"Do you want to be?" he asked, throwing her objection back in her teeth.

She stomped his foot, but it only ended up hurting her, as he was wearing the equivalent of steel-toed boots, apparently. "Don't be daft, you know what I mean!"

Marcus shot a look over her head to Cassius, whose sigh was long and bemoaning.

"Isn't there's an antechamber somewhere in here," her cousin said, and she could practically envision him shooing them off. "There always is in one of these places."

Before she could move to get away, Marcus had one solid hand wrapped around her arm and he was tugging her after him into the aforementioned antechamber, where they'd be alone. Her struggles to prevent that were useless, but she made them nonetheless.

By the time the side room's door closed behind her, Katie was feeling a bit claustrophobic and more than a little terrified. Marcus had always been unpredictable, and they hadn't seen each other in years, since their…moment. She didn't want to be here in this small chamber, alone and without witnesses, especially when he was touching her.

To get Marcus to let go, she punched him in the shoulder as hard as she could.

He released her immediately, but the pain in her knuckles that followed had her swearing up a storm. "Jesus, fuck! What have you been doing over the years, Flint—weightlifting Erumpents?"

Shaking her hand out, she whimpered from the ache, sure that was going to leave a serious bruise.

Colour her surprised when Marcus reached out and gently took her injured hand in his. He ran careful fingers over the hurt, then extricated his wand and cast a healing charm over the area. Instantly, a cool wash of curative magic came, and with it instant relief. Katie was thankful, of course, and she said as much a moment later, but she was also weary of the kindness. Marcus had never been known for doing something for nothing, Slytherin as he was to the core.

"Why are you doing this?"

He glanced at her. "Doing what?"

"This. The healing. The waiting." She extricated her hand from his cold one. "Why aren't you…hurting me? Like the others are doing to their 'slaves', I mean."

He searched her face for a long while before he replied. "Because I don't want to."

"Why not?" she demanded, her anger renewed. He hadn't seemed to ever be bothered by the idea before. "I'm a member of the Order, a friend of Harry Potter. That makes me your enemy."

He snorted. "No, it doesn't."

"Yes, it does," she persisted. "I'm everything you've been told to despise: I'm Gryffindor, I'm a half-blood with a Muggle mother, and I'm a  _woman_. Your all-boy network sees everything I am as beneath you, barely human."

"Bellatrix is a woman."

She sniffed. "Barely. Besides, she's insanely loyal to the cause and probably shagging your Dark Lord to boot, which is why he keeps her around at all. Otherwise, your entire movement is made up of sexually repressed, closeted pricks and their brainwashed trophy wives."

It shocked her when Marcus' lips curled with a hint of a genuine smile at that.

"You're a part of that group, too, so I wouldn't laugh if I were you," she warned him.

"I'm not married-"

"Women all over the world are rejoicing at that fact, I'm sure."

"-yet."

That one word shut her up, made her reconsider her next jibe very carefully. "What do you mean?" she asked instead of continuing to taunt him. Her voice sounded to her ears unusually small with caution…and a little fear, if she was being honest.

He was silent and searching her face again, carefully considering what to tell her, she knew.

"I have a wife in mind."

Katie tried to ignore the way that bomb made her feel a little bit miserable. "I pity her."

He laughed at that, and the sound was warm, almost merry—something she'd never have expected from him, given how utterly serious and cold he'd always been. Well, except that one night…

"Will she know about your participation in the revels, or will you keep your raping a secret from her?"

Just like that, his amusement was snuffed out. "I don't touch prisoners," he growled at her. "Not like that."

Well, that was good to know at least.

"And we're waiting here for Snape."

The tiny room was suddenly a whole lot smaller.

Katie's former Potions professor had always intimidated her. When it had been revealed that he'd been the one to kill Dumbledore and when he'd taken over Hogwarts as its new Headmaster, though, he'd gone from 'horrible' to 'terrifying'. He'd become one of the monsters.

Over the last several years, under Snape's guidance, Hogwarts had become the training grounds for a new generation of Death Eater. The screams of the 'unlucky and impure' echoed through the Scottish countryside when his school was in session, for it had become a thing of pride for a wizarding child to learn well how to torture Muggles and Muggle-borns, and how to cast Unforgivables.

She hadn't seen Severus Snape in years, but the thought of it now had her knees shaking.

"Why?" she asked, not sure she wanted to really know the reason. "What's he to do with any of this?"

Marcus frowned at the tremor in her voice and limbs. "He's to help get you away."

That had Katie so scared, she nearly puked up the bread and water she'd been given for breakfast. "Where?" The thought of being handed over to one of the Carrow twins for classroom 'practice' had her swaying on her feet.

The feeling only worsened when Marcus turned away and refused to answer her question.

Frightened of the unknown future and of her unclear fate, she did what all Gryffindors did when facing uncertainty: got angry and let her mouth run away with her. "I asked you a question, Flint. You look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Unfazed by her ire, but clearly curious as to what she'd do next, Marcus turned back. His expression remained impassive in the face of her mounting fury.

And didn't that just vex her even more.

"What do you want from me?" she demanded through gritted teeth. "Why am I really here?"

He didn't answer either question, remaining tight lipped and unruffled.

The palms of her hands stung from where her nails were digging in as Katie fisted them at her sides. "Fine, if you're going to kill me, then just do it! End it quick, you mangy bastard!"

Marcus' silence was unnerving, and only upset her worse.

"Do it, Flint, I dare you! Do it now! Clean up our unfinished business once and for all!"

That finally got a reaction from her captor, but not the one she'd been expecting. Returning to her side, he leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. "That was the plan," he told her. "To fix the biggest mistake of my life."

Cold fear shimmered up Katie's spine.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, having to work to keep her voice from sounding as meek and fearful as she was feeling just then. Not to mention hurt.

Was he saying he regretted and resented being with her, too? She had good reason to feel as she did; he'd joined the team that was trying to exterminate her. But if he was implying that he was ashamed of having bedded her, as if she was something beneath him… Talk about shredding a girl's ego!

She'd kick his arse if that's what he'd meant!

"Well?" she demanded, getting her back up again. "What did you mean?"

He ran a single finger down her cheek, and she felt his touch brand her in ways that made her traitorous heart pound.

"You won't be running away from me again, Katie," he told her very succinctly and assuredly. "This time, I'm keeping you."


	3. If all that I have done

Silence reigned for a good bit after that admission, and Katie fidgeted, trying to make sense of Marcus’ true intentions.  
  
Did he want her, or was he toying with her, like a snake with a mouse? Obviously, he wasn’t going to kill her yet, if at all. He wasn’t going to rape her either because he’d have already done so if that had been the plan. She knew he couldn’t perform Legilimency, or at least he hadn’t been able to four years ago, so ripping Order secrets from her head didn’t seem to be in the cards for tonight, either.  
  
Unless that’s what Snape was for… Mind magic or a drop of Veritaserum—either was a possibility with the former Potions professor. The way Potter had told it, Hogwarts’ current Headmaster was an even better Legilimens and Occlumens than Voldemort, as well as being skilled in cauldron concoctions.  
  
She tried not to think too hard about it. Freaking herself out wasn’t going to change the situation. If it came down to it, she’d fight until she was broken, and do her best not to betray the Order. In the meantime, she’d try to find a way out of this mess by prodding her ‘jailer’ for information. “What did you mean earlier when you said you were going to ‘fix the biggest mistake’ of your life?” she asked her captor, curious as to his nefarious intentions for her future. “What Slytherin schemes are you up to now, Flint?”  
  
In the small antechamber, there was a single pew, and her ‘master’ threw his massive frame down onto it and sighed. It was a deep, exhausted sound.  
  
“Come here, Bell,” he told her and held his hand out to her.  
  
She snapped at that. “You don’t talk to me that way! I am not a dog!” She planted her feet even more firmly where she stood and crossed her arms, defiant in the face of his commanding tone. “Besides, you’re not the boss of me, regardless of that sick, little circus of a ‘slave auction’ your boss held earlier tonight. No one owns me, but  _me_.”  
  
Again, that hint of an amused smile graced his lips. “Come here…please.”  
  
They had a staring contest then. She resisted him with a hard frown, and he dared her with an intimate, half-lidded gaze.  
  
“Do I scare you, little cat?” he asked in a soft, tempting tone.  
  
Huffing in disdain at the idea, Katie gathered her courage and crossed over to him…and took a seat on the far side of the pew, with enough feet between them for the Holy Ghost and then some. “Not a chance,” she said. “I just don’t trust you.”  
  
The truth was the last thing she wanted was to be close to him again, to be lulled into that familiar desire for abandon that had gotten her into trouble the one time. Been there, done that, burned hard. Not interested in a repeat no matter what her treasonous, little heart did whenever he touched her.  
  
Really.  
  
Marcus’ chuckle was darkly masculine and deliberate. “Smart of you.”  
  
Her eyes cut to him. “Stop it.”  
  
“Stop what?”  
  
“We both know you’re not innocent or harmless, so can the act. I’m not falling for your tricks ever again, Flint. Once was enough, thanks.”  
  
His grin became quite feral then. “So you  _do_  think about it.”  
  
Katie turned her nose up and looked away. “I don’t.”  
  
_Liar, liar,_  her conscience chided her.  
  
“You do,” he said quite assuredly. “Has there been anyone else?”  
  
“M.Y.O.B.” At his confused look she explained, “Mind your own business. It’s a Muggle-ism. You know, half of my heritage.”  
  
“I’ve fucked others,” he admitted, and inwardly a part of her winced. “None of them were you, though.”  
  
She snorted, hiding behind cynicism and anger as a handy shield for her convoluted feelings where Marcus was concerned. “Obviously.”  
  
He was silent a moment longer before murmuring, “I’ve missed you, my Katie.”  
  
“Ha! Right. You just admitted you haven’t been in want for a bed partner, so excuse me while I don’t believe that fib,” she insisted. “And don’t call me that, you great hulking beast. I’m not ‘your’ anything.”  
  
He slid a few feet over towards her. “You still like me. You definitely want me. I can tell.”  
  
“Someone’s overdosed on the Patented Daydream Charms again, I can see.”  
  
“I still want and like you,” he admitted, moving over some more. “More than like.”  
  
She glared at him and yanked at the collar around her neck. “Really? Then you wouldn’t mind removing this from around your ‘beloved’s’ neck, would you?”  
  
“You’ll run again.”  
  
“Good assessment,” she told him while nodding. “I’ll brain you first and then castrate my cousin, of course. You forgot that part.”  
  
His flashed a wicked, naughty grin her way, and it set her heart to pounding to see it again. Years ago, she’d helped him correct that smile with a resizing and straightening charm on his teeth…  
  
She’d been part of the contingent led by Theodore Nott that had broken into the castle to get some of the innocent kids out through the Slytherin emergency exit tunnels that led under the lake. Someone ahead had accidentally set off the collapse of the tunnels, and she’d been last in line, cut off from the others as the ceiling had caved in. She’d lost her wand in the rubble and had suffered serious injuries. Marcus, who had been assigned to the castle by his Dark Lord as ‘security’ had been patrolling the dungeons when he’d heard and felt the rumbling underfoot. He’d taken gathered her up and hurried her away from the scene.  
  
Rather than turn her over to the Carrows or Snape, though, he’d hidden her in the room he’d been assigned. At first, she’d thought he’d meant to keep her as a prisoner for his own uses; she’d heard rumours of witches and even some younger wizards subjected to acts of sexual depravity by Death Eaters. Marcus hadn’t taken advantage, though. He’d fed her, cleaned her up, and tended her injuries as best he could. He’d lived alone, without a roommate, and so it had been an easy thing for him to hide her.  
  
It had taken days for the potions he’d stolen from Madam Pomfrey’s stores to finally complete their work, but in the end, the Skele-gro and Blood-replenshing draughts had fixed her right up. It had been several weeks longer before Marcus had reported that the tunnels were finally cleared enough for her to make a second bid for freedom.  
  
That time had changed everything for Katie. Confined to his room, as she hadn’t a wand to defend herself and they couldn’t risk her being caught out, she’d come to  _see_  Marcus, to understand him a bit better. She’d snooped through all his things, discovering what kind of man he really was: he preferred wool and cotton to silk and satin, had a secret liking for poetry and many of the page markers for his favourites sonnets were kept by pressed flowers, and he also kept a small journal containing Quidditch plays that he’d notated, despite the fact the game hadn’t been seen on any level since the war had begun. He did not wear cologne, didn’t own ostentatious jewellery, and kept his hair cut soldier-short because it was coarse and unmanageable otherwise. She observed him carefully during that time as well: he was a quiet, but heavy sleeper, had no modesty when it came to stripping down and changing in front of others, and he was the most withdrawn and silent on the nights he came back from raids. During those times, he slept in the empty dorm next door.  
  
The night before she was to leave him, she’d asked to repay his kindness in saving her life, and he’d willingly entrusted her with his wand so she could fix his teeth for him. There had been no hesitation on his part when he’d passed it to her, despite the fact she could have turned it on him right then and there. That trust had decided things for her, she now knew in retrospect.  
  
When he’d kissed her in thanks for correcting his ‘defect’, as he’d called it, she’d felt the spark ignite between them, and when things had unexpectedly progressed and they’d ended up making love in his bed, he’d taken not only her body but a piece of her soul as well.  
  
_“Katie…god, Katie!”_  
  
_“Marcus, I need you. I need… Please!”_  
  
_“Anything. Everything. All for you.”_  
  
She’d never experienced anything like it, not before or since. Such honest passion had blindsided her, left her raw in its passing, and tormented her even now when she closed her eyes and let the memories take her back…


	4. Is keeping me from you

“You’re remembering.”  
  
Katie blinked in surprise to see Marcus had moved while she’d been lost in her head, so now he was right next to her on the bench.  
  
He leaned his mouth towards her ear. “I think of that night, too. All the time. Can’t get it out of my head.”  
  
“Don’t,” she whispered, and her voice shook.  
  
No, she couldn’t end up there again with him, no matter the attraction she still felt for him. He’d chosen his path, and it hadn’t been fighting at her side…  
  
Marcus paused, his lips hovering over her ear. “I won’t hurt you.”  
  
Her heart thumped hard under her ribs. “You will. You  _did_ ,” she insisted. “You wouldn’t come with me when I asked you to! You chose this‒” She grabbed his left forearm, knowing well where the Mark was branded. “‒over me!”  
  
The pain of that betrayal stabbed at her again.  
  
That next morning, after they’d spent an entire night in each other’s arms, learning every secret the other had to offer, she’d pleaded with him to come with her when she’d left. He’d refused…and so she’d turned his wand on him, knocking him out and quickly escaping his room, afraid he’d hold her captive forever if she didn’t make a break for it right that minute.

She’d run then, as fast as her feet could fly to return to the Order, and spent the years since fighting, hopping across the whole of Britain from safe house to camping in the wilds. Yes, she’d done her share of visiting other men’s beds during that time, too, but it was all in an attempt to forget all about Marcus Flint.  
  
Futile, she now knew, sitting next to him and feeling all the things she’d worked to repress come to the surface once more. All the hours crying silently into foreign pillows or behind her hand to stifle the sadness that had never stopped stalking her since she’d left his room, all the times she’d avoided casting the Killing Curse at her enemies, just in case one of them was  _him_  hiding under the metal disguise, all the praying she’d done whenever deaths were announced after a skirmish, fearing she’d hear his name… Futile.  
  
That did not, however, mean she wasn’t bitter.  
  
“You stayed to serve the enemy,” she accused him again. “You’re still wearing their masks, attending their meetings, fighting their war for them!”  
  
His forehead fell to her shoulder and rested there. “For  _you_ ,” he maintained. “It’s all been for you.”  
  
She pulled away, stood up quickly and put space between them. “Rubbish! How has any of this-” She pulled at the collar around her next and waved a hand towards the opposite end of the house. “-been to my benefit, Marcus? Explain it, because all I see is you dressed in Death Eater robes and claiming to be my new master as if I was a thing to be bought and sold.”  
  
Pushing a frustrated hand through his short, dark hair, he also got to his feet and began pacing the length of the small room. Four up, four back was all that his long-legged stride allowed.  
  
“I-”  
  
He paused, clearly torn up as to what to say. Marcus had never been the eloquent type. That didn’t mean he was simple or cowardly, though. Maybe he’d never be book-smart like Hermione Granger or witty like Charlie Weasley or as brash as Alicia Spinnet, but he was perceptive and he was sly, and his wand arm was fast and vicious, she knew. He was Slytherin to his core, with layers she was only just then beginning to truly fathom.  
  
“I wanted you safe,” he finally settled on. “I wanted to help your cause.”  
  
“Help my‒?” Katie was feeling all sorts of cynical about his claim. “How? By killing my friends?”  
  
That seemed to get him angry. “I’ve never killed.”  
  
“No, you just stood by and watched,” she snarled at him, pointing towards where they both knew the raping and reveling was occurring right then in the same house. “You watched and said nothing!”  
  
“I’ve had to!” he yelled, and that was the first time she could recall him ever raising his voice to her. It shocked her, especially to hear the anguish beneath the fury. “I’ve had to be silent…for you!”  
  
Resolved to prove himself, he pulled the sleeve of his right arm up to show her what lay beneath. With a tap on the skin by his wand, the glamour charm that had been covering up a set of ropy, reddened scars faded away to reveal the permanently marked skin underneath. It was the pattern of someone who had taken an Unforgivable Vow. “I bound myself to a death oath for you!” he said with a growl and marched over to her to thrust his arm out for a closer look. “I spy for you!” He grabbed her long hair then, thrust his fingers through it and tilted her head back so she would look him in the eye. “I betray everything I know for  _you_ , Katie.”

Spy?  
  
Katie’s mouth dropped open.  
  
What was he saying? He wasn’t a spy. He couldn’t be! It had to be a lie because she hadn’t heard anything of the sort.  
  
…Then again, she’d thought the same thing of Theodore Nott before he’d openly defected to their side three years after the war had gone into full swing. She’d even heard a rumour that Nott was currently working with a spy or two within the Death Eater ranks to get the Order vital information about Voldemort’s plans.  
  
Was Marcus one of Nott’s spies, then?

“Are you saying you’re a turncoat?”  
  
He nodded once.  
  
That was hard for her to believe…and yet, a small flame of hope lit up in her chest at the possibility.

“How is that possible? What do you get out of it?” Their eyes locked, and in them, she read the truth. “ _Me?_  Why?”  
  
He shrugged and slyly smiled. “You’re hot and play Quidditch. What’s not to want?”  
  
She scowled at his joking. “Be serious.”  
  
His expression shifted as he did as she asked. “What do you want me to say?”  
  
“The truth. It’ll get you further.”  
  
“You mean you want  _more_  truth.”  
  
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”  
  
“It is.”  
  
“Not if you ever want me to trust you again,” she stated.  
  
“Will it get me back into your knickers?”  
  
She slapped his arm, which was like hitting a solid brick. “Try it,” she advised, shaking her hand out. “You never know.”

Again, his big shoulders jerked as he shrugged them. “I knew the minute I saw you in that tunnel that it was a sign. Knew it was time to get out then.”  
  
Katie rolled her eyes in disbelief, for she knew how she must have looked, lying there on the cold, hard ground, covered in dust and blood. “I’m just that charming while unconscious, I suppose?”  
  
His gaze dropped to her mouth. “No, you’re just that beautiful.”


	5. Can the arms of mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters left, friends.
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to AO3 user "Ramons", who picked up on where the title of this fic originates (from the song of the same name by "Trading Yesterday" - hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICMsciq10bo).

She scoffed, but in her chest, her heart was beating awfully hard. Marcus wasn’t a flatterer by nature, she knew. He said what he meant, usually.  
  
“You are,” he insisted, glowering at her for daring to contradict him. “I’ve always thought you pretty, even back in school, but you were just a kid then.” His lids lowered with definite interest now and he licked his lips. “When I saw you again, though, you were all grown up. It…knocked me sideways. I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.” His fingers massaged the back of her head, while his other arm slipped around her waist, pulling her into him. “Soon as I got you to my room, I contacted Nott Junior and told him I had you. He sent Snape to me eventually. We made a deal.”  
  
Wait, Snape was working with Nott?

Her former  _Potions professor_  was the inside contact who had been feeding Theo all that vital, secret information about the Death Eater’s movements and plans for years?  
  
“I don’t understand,” she admitted, poignantly aware of the hard ridge of Marcus’ arousal suddenly pressing against her belly. Maybe he  _hadn’t_  regretted or resented having slept with her in the past, as she’s assumed, because there was clearly no denying that he was still attracted to her in the here and now. “Are you saying Snape’s a traitor to your Dark Lord, too, that he’s been working with the Order all this time?”  
  
“He’s the one who recruited Nott and me, and…others.”  
  
Recruited.

So he really was a spy for the Order, then.  
  
Something inside her chest loosened at that knowledge.  
  
Hesitantly, she slid her hands down Marcus’ body as she relaxed in his hold, no longer quite so mistrusting now that he was finally talking. The voice of reason told her to be cautious, of course, to demand more answers before putting her full faith into his hands once more, but that he seemed willing to give up some secrets at long last was a good start.  
  
As her fingers trailed down his chest and ridged abdomen, every muscle tightened in response and he let out a rough, rumbling sigh of pleasure. She stopped quite suddenly, not expecting to hear such a thing from him ever again and shocked by how deeply the sensuous sound affected her. As she stared up into his intense, green gaze, her blood roared in her ears.  
  
“Be careful,” he warned as he pushed her hair tenderly back from her face and cupped her cheek. “Some things haven’t changed, Katie.”  
  
“What things?” she dared.  
  
His eyes dipped to her mouth again. “I think you know.”  
  
Katie found her hips suddenly had a mind of their own. They moved closer to his, pressed against him, even rubbed a little up and down to create a lovely friction right where she both wanted and needed it. Others might say she was playing with fire by using sex as a weapon, but for too many years she’d dreamed about being back in Marcus’ arms, doing wicked things with him. Could she be blamed for taking the advantage, especially if it got her the answers she so desperately required at the same time?  
  
“Do I really?”  
  
She felt him grow impossibly harder and longer at her flippancy. Obviously, he liked her sassing back at him.  
  
“Ah, hell, that’s good,” he growled and tilted his hips forward a bit so she could slide down his monster of an erection. “You know I don’t like to be teased, Kate.”  
  
She couldn’t help but poke the snake, though. It was in her nature to play reckless. Besides, what she was doing felt too good to put the brakes on right then, especially when she moved to her tiptoes to align their cores. “So Snape’s…a good guy?” she asked, a bit breathless as she slowly rode him, stroking up and down over his taut length, feeling the ache blooming between her legs. “Why would you make an Unbreakable Vow with him, though?”  
  
The grip he had on her hip and the one in her hair simultaneously tightened. “He promised he’d get you out in exchange for my service,” he said, panting, clearly enjoying what she was doing to him despite what he’d said about being teased. “You  _Stupefy’d_  me before I could explain, though.” He groaned and pulled her in tighter, assuring their bodies had full contact for the slip and glide game she’d initiated. “Keep it up and I’ll fuck you right here, baby. I swear it!”  
  
God, this felt so good!  
  
She ignored his warning, knowing it was a dangerous risk. After all, gambling was in her Gryffindor blood. Plus, she’d fantasized too often of being this close to him again to let go now... “Why would you bargain for my freedom at all?” she asked, shuddering as the angle they rubbed against each other was just right for her maximum pleasure. “Back then, we weren’t on the same side. We were, technically, enemies. You should have turned me in to your Dark Lord.”  
  
His jaw tensed and his eyes squeezed shut as she pressed even harder into him. “Because by then all I could think about was bending you over every piece of furniture in my room and making you mine forever.” He swore under his breath as she wiggled upon him. “Last chance. Stop or I’m going to have you.”  
  
“What else did you promise him?” she asked, still astounded by the fact that he’d take a death vow for her. “To plant false information, to help others escape capture, to sabotage Death Eater attacks?”  
  
He nodded and cupped her bum to hold her still, clearly on the edge. “All of it,” he gasped, his chest heaving with the effort of his restraint.  
  
Tipping closer to that point of no return, her body humming with anticipation for what should come next, Katie dared one last question:  
  
“Do you often take Unforgivable Vows for women you just want to fuck?”  
  
His eyes opened and his glittering, sharp gaze returned to hers. The hot lash of his lust reflected in those brilliant green depths, nearly burning her with its intensity.  
  
“Only you.”  
  
As she looked closer, past the desire calling out to her from his expression,  _it_  was suddenly there in the angles of his face too, in the turn of his mouth and in the light in his eyes…the real reason for his change in allegiance. Her heart skipped a beat, making her breath catch.  
  
Marcus  _loved_  her.  
  
For a moment, she hovered on the precipice between joyous belief and sharp doubt. Was this some kind of cruel Slytherin joke, or worse all one big, well-concocted lie to win her over, to get her to betray the Order?  _Please don’t let it be_ , she thought, her blood pounding in her ears, her cheeks flaming hot. She hadn’t realised until just then how desperately she’d wanted him to feel the same way about her that she had for him, even after all this time apart.  
  
“Get it, Bell? You’re not my slave. I’m yours,” he admitted, lowering his mouth until his lips brushed against hers. “ _You_  captured  _me_  years ago.”  
  
He kissed her then, and the world spun in dizzying, warm circles that had Katie closing her eyes and holding onto him to keep from falling to her knees.  
  
Since the day he’d refused to follow her out of Hogwarts to freedom, she’d cursed him for throwing away what they could have had, and yet now here he was, telling her with his lips that he’d never really let her go.  
  
“Marcus,” she whispered, agonized by this confession, unsure whether to trust it or not.  
  
What if her judgment had been too compromised by her own desires for him, so that she couldn’t see past the rose-coloured glasses and her raging libido to the truth? Was she being a fool again for this man?  _Please let this be real,_  she begged whoever might be listening up above.  
  
“Tell me you’re not tricking me,” she pleaded aloud, holding onto him for dear life. “So help me, Marcus, if you’re lying…”  
  
“For you,” he whispered again and again in between hungry, desperate kisses that seduced her thoroughly. “On my soul, Katie, all I do is for you. For you only.”  
  
It was enough. She took his promise, believed it, and surrendered to it once more. If there were to be any consequences from this decision, she’d resolved to deal with them later, as they came. Right now, though, she wanted him and the dream he was offering.  
  
“I need you,” she told him. “Marcus, please!”  
  
Her lover picked her up, leaned her against the nearest wall, and tore at their clothing to get to the naked skin underneath. When she was bared to him once more, she wrapped her legs around his waist and gave herself over to his thorough seduction.  
  
“Don’t stop,” she begged as his hands caressed her everywhere, igniting hot shards of pleasure throughout her trembling, hungry body. “Don’t ever stop!”  
  
He did as she wished. His mouth loved hers with ferocity, even as his body did the same. When he sheathed himself deep and moved within her, it was all wildness, just like their first time. And when he held her after it was done, hot breath panting against her throat, their matched heartbeats were a promise for the future.


	6. Bring me rescue

* * *

 

Before awkwardness could shove its way in between them and ruin the moment, Marcus took control of the situation once more. “Don’t run this time,” he bade her, as he pulled out of her sore, well-loved body. “And don’t try and knock me out. I have a plan, love.”  
  
She glanced at the antechamber’s ancient wooden door, its carved artwork gilded with gold and silver. “What are you going to do?” she whispered, afraid suddenly of the world that awaited them outside. What if it tore them from each other once again? Now that she’d been given this second chance, she also became aware of the vulnerable position it put her in: losing Marcus a second time could cripple her, and she wasn’t sure that she would recover from such a thing.  
  
He helped her to redress without answering, then righted his own clothing.  
  
“Marc?”  
  
Leaning down, he softly kissed her. “Trust me. I got this.”  
  
A whistle sounded from the other room; Cassius was calling them back into the main chamber. Just in time.  
  
Marcus took her hand and led her into the other part of the chapel. What greeted them when they entered had Katie stopping in her tracks.  
  
Cassius was holding onto Oliver as a lover would, petting him and whispering gentle things in his ear. Oliver was crying and had Cas in a tight embrace, as if he was afraid to let go. Snape stood at the doorway to the chapel, his dark eyes falling on her and Marcus, and on where their hands were clasped. There was a momentary tick of irritation about her former professor’s mouth just before he sighed.  
  
“Mister Warrington…am I to take it you are defecting with Mister Flint, then?” he asked, after waving an extra Silencing Charm around the room with a flick of his wrist. When her cousin nodded in agreement, Snape seemed resignedly accepting. “The loss of two of my better spies most likely won’t make a difference at this juncture, what with the end so close anyway.”  
  
Katie’s eyebrows shot into her hairline at that comment.  
  
“What do you mean?” she demanded, finding courage from deep within to confront the scary Headmaster. She glanced at her cousin. “You’re a spy as well, then?”  
  
Cassius’ laughing eyes glanced up at her and a smirk twisted his lips. “Mm, and gay, too. Your ‘Ollie’ has been mine for years, dearest cousin…and ironically, our story is rather similar to yours and Flint’s as well. It seems ‘star-crossed lovers’ during wartime aren’t as rare as Shakespeare would have us all believe.” His expression lost its amusement a beat later and a hard glint entered his eye. He looked at her, Marcus, and Snape. “MacNair is mine to kill.”  
  
Snape and Marcus easily bowed to the demand.  
  
“Duly noted,” Katie added, not wanting to get in the middle of that revenge-taking.  
  
Cassius turned back to Oliver and whispered something soft and private in his ear.  
  
Wow, her cousin wasn’t really a blood-purist asshat, as she’d always assumed. He’d played his Slytherin cards well, then, because she’d definitely bought into his act for years. “Did you warn my father at the start of the war?” she asked him. “To take my mum and go, I mean? Was that you?”  
  
Her cousin melodramatically sighed. “Although I’d love to take such credit and appear all the nobler in the eyes of my lover, the truth is it was  _your_  father who warned  _me_ , cousin.” He glanced at Snape. “My dear uncle was, in fact, the one to introduce me to the Headmaster’s spy network.”  
  
“Your father secretly aided the Order during the First War,” her former teacher said when she turned to him for an explanation. “It was why he left you and your mother initially. He was then incarcerated in Azkaban for six years until Dumbledore could convince the Wizengamot to release him.”  
  
Which explained why he’d never come back for them. She’d thought he’d abandoned them, when all the time, he’d been paying for the ‘sin’ of fighting for the light under the guise of a Voldemort loyalist. And of course, by the time he would have been released from prison, her mother had remarried, which might have accounted for why he’d stayed away then, too.  
  
Her mum was a widow now, though, due to a car accident that claimed the life of Katie’s step-father when Katie was seventeen, so maybe her parents might get a second chance, just as she and Marcus had…  
  
“Can you remove her collar?”  
  
Marcus was speaking with Snape just then, so she tuned back in.  
  
“It’s got the lock and trace on it,” he explained to his mentor.  
  
“And his, too,” Cassius added, referring to Oliver’s restraint around his neck.  
  
Snape rolled his eyes and then approached first her cousin and his ‘slave’ and then her. He used a spell she didn’t know to remove both collars. “Why couldn’t you have taken it off?” she asked Marcus, as the joint on her choker came free and she pulled it off, tossing it to the ground.  
  
He shook his head. “The lock can’t be undone by someone who loves you. The magic knows.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  
Well, didn’t that just make all kinds of sense? Voldemort couldn’t have just a simple ward on the thing; he had to make it so escaping victims and their loved ones would suffer forever.  
  
Bastard.  
  
Marcus turned back to Snape and said simply, “Marry us. Here.”  
  
Katie had never seen her former teacher caught so flat-footed. For that sake, she didn’t think  _she’d_  ever been so surprised.  
  
He wanted to  _marry_  her?  
  
Here?  
  
Now?  
  
“But-” she started to protest, but Snape’s expression suddenly shifted into one of cunning and admiration, and that put her on guard.  
  
“Clever,” the man said to her lover. “You’re sure? It cannot be undone. It is to the death.”  
  
Marcus let go of her hand and lifted the sleeve on his right arm, where the ropey scars of the Unforgivable Vow he’d made on her behalf were burned forever. “So is this,” he reminded and then turned to her. “If you’ll have me.”  
  
Confused, Katie looked from Marcus to Snape to Cassius and back.  
  
“Why is it to the death?” she asked the first question that popped into her head.  
  
“Because this is Flint Manor and it’s protected by wards,” Snape explained impatiently to her, talking to her as if she was some dim-witted fool. “They recognize everyone who passes through them. You’re not Marked and you’re not a pure-blood, the only two exceptions allowed, so they’d go off if you tried crossing them. Becoming a Flint by proxy in marriage will register you as belonging to the Flint family, however. Ergo, you will be able to leave without sounding the alarm.”  
  
“Oh.” She considered that. “But why is it a forever union?”  
  
Her lover slid closer to her, pressing their bodies together once more as he wrapped his arms around her. “Because pure-bloods marry for life.”  
  
She frowned. “But my father divorced my mother, and he’s a pure-blood.”  
  
Firmly he shook his head. “Divorced like Muggles isn’t the same. He was still married to your mother here.”  
  
In the wizarding world, marriage magic was binding, it seemed.  
  
“Oh, my god,” she said, understanding at last. That was why her dad had never remarried…and why he’d gone back for her mother, to protect her during this war! Tears filled her eyes, spilled down her hot cheeks as a lifetime of misunderstanding was finally clarified. “It wasn’t just duty or a sense of guilt that made him go back for us. He still loves Mum!”  
  
Marcus kissed her cheek and hugged her tight. “Pure-blood men only love and marry once. It’s tradition.”  
  
And he wanted to marry  _her_ , which meant he really did love her, and none of this was a fleeting thing.  
  
She pulled out of his embrace and turned to Cassius. “But what about you? How are you escaping? You’re not a Flint.”  
  
He grinned at her. “My mother is a Flint. Carrying half her blood is enough to get through the blood wards around this place.” He jerked his chin towards Marcus. “She’s his aunt, by the way, so technically he’s my cousin, too.” He grinned at her like a loon, as if he’d been waiting years to pop this one on her. “You, dearest Kate, are my father’s brother’s daughter, my first cousin by blood. He’s my second cousin on dear old Mum’s side.”  
  
“That’s…weird,” she admitted, figuring it out in her head and giving a sigh in relief that she and Marcus were not, in any way, blood-related in that whole mess. “You pure-bloods need to quit inbreeding. It’s making you all insane. Get out more, meet other women or something.”  
  
Marcus tweaked a strand of her hair. “Your father did that.”  
  
Yes, he had, hadn’t he? He’d met and fallen in love with a person his social circle considered an ‘outsider’ and therefore ‘untouchable’, with a woman whose skin colour didn’t matter as much as her heart’s Gryffindor red and gold.  
  
Just as Marcus had with her.  
  
“He joined the Order to save us,” she said, feeling her chest go tight at the knowledge. “That means he must have gone against his family’s wishes. He was a blood-traitor to them.”  
  
“When my father found out, he had kittens,” Cassius admitted, grinning like a crazy man. “He and all the rest of the Warringtons have disowned your side of the family altogether.” He shook his head and chuckled with a feral glee. “Wait ‘til the bastard hears about me, though! I’ll be booted from the house for sure!”  
  
“Don’t sound too happy about it or anything,” Katie replied, thinking her cousin had gone quite mad.  
  
“Are you kidding? I’ve wanted out of that stifling zoo of intolerance and hatred since I was six!” he said with a laugh. “And I get to skip the whole pure-blood arranged-marriage thing, not to mention prison at the end of all of this. I’ll totally dodge the lot  _and_  get my Prince Charming!” He snuggled closer to Oliver. “I win!”  
  
She just shook her head. The man was either certifiable or Oliver’s Gryffindor had rubbed off on him.  
  
Probably both.  
  
“Marry me, Katie.”  
  
She turned and looked up into Marcus’ handsome face at such a sweet, simple proposal.  
  
“Make an Unbreakable Vow  _with_  me this time.”  
  
“I will,” she easily agreed, tears streaming down her face. A sudden thought invaded her happiness, however. “Wait, your parents are still here! I saw them in the ballroom. They serve the Dark Lord. Are they spies, too?”  
  
Sadly, he shook his head.  
  
“Then, like Cassius, are you prepared to abandon them?”  
  
He cupped her wet cheeks and gave her a small, gentle smile. “For you, Bell, I would do anything.”


	7. To return to you

* * *

Snape married them that day before the ancient altar where centuries of Flints had committed themselves. Then, he'd married Oliver and Cassius as well.

Sealed to their loved ones, the four of them prepared to leave Flint Manor for good, to go out into the world to find the Order and rejoin them.

"Nagini dies this night," Snape said. "Tell Potter to be ready."

"I will," Marcus promised his former professor and mentor. "Thank you."

They shook hands.

Snape looked down at Katie, eyebrow arched as if he couldn't believe how she'd changed over the years…and how much things had remained the same for her. "Good luck," he wished her and the others, and in a swirl of black cloth, he was gone.

The chapel doors boomed shut behind him.

"He isn't scary anymore," she said, her opinion of Severus Snape having been completely turned on its head now that she knew the truth. "Funny how a single night can forever change everything you've ever believed."

At her side, Marcus grunted in agreement. Then, he turned and headed for the space behind the altar where they'd been married moments before. He turned a sconce on the wall, and a secret passage opened up. From the outside, the door had been completely sealed and undetectable by magic prior to that. "Through here," he said. "It leads to the family crypt on the edge of the property. We get out through there, cross the wards, and then Apparate to freedom."

"To Kirkwall. Edge of the town. There's a safe house not far from there," she told them.

"I've never been," Cassius admitted. "I can't jump to a place I don't know."

"I know it," Oliver finally spoke, his voice raw from disuse or perhaps too much screaming. He laced his fingers with Cassius', and in his face, Katie saw a hint of her old Quidditch captain returning. His spine straightened and his chin tilted, and in his amber eyes, there was a spark of returning strength. "I can take us there. I'm strong enough…now."

They all agreed to the plan, and Marcus was set to lead the way through the dark tunnel.

 _Another tunnel…_  she thought with a bit of trepidation. The last one she'd escaped through had caved in on her, leaving her on death's door. But then Marcus had come, and he'd rescued her.

He took her hand in his now. "Follow me. I know the way."

Trusting her new husband and their future together, Katie grabbed a tight hold of him and let him lead her and her old friend and her outrageous cousin to freedom.

This time, when their palms clasped together, Marcus' fingers were warm, his touch a million fiery suns that gave her courage in the face of a more certain future.

_**~FIN~** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Final Notes:
> 
> Thank you so much for taking this journey with me, Marcus, Katie, Cassius, Oliver, and Snape! I hope you have enjoyed it. No sequel planned - I like it just where it ended.
> 
> Thank you again so much for your continued reviews! I love reading your thoughts and hearing your ideas! Keep sending them to me.
> 
> Much love to you,
> 
> \- RZZMG


End file.
